Thanks for the fast replies. I have now added the tomato to the onion and blended. Again the mixture is not as thick as I had thought it would be (I'm not saying this is wrong.....just expected thicker) the recipe now calls for another litre of water with only a short additional cooking time, so little evaporation. Will this just mean longer reducing in the final dish or can I cut down on the water and not have to reduce in the final dish.

Sorry for all the basic stuff. I know I will still make a decent meal, but would like to get it as near the "standard" as possible before I start to modify my own method.

Thanks again folks.

I am towards the end of making Razors base. All seems well except the tomato mix still seems to be very oily. 150ml seems like a lot of oil but I stuck with it and went in with faith! Do I just need to cook for longer? is my pan too small? does it oil reduce? Should I just carry on and not worry?

The fact that the chicken is pre-cooked in ginger, onion and turmeric will in itself, give flavour to the chicken. Being cooked also opens the fibres in the meat allowing the final sauce to penetrate.
If the chicken it cooked from raw it will often be flash fried to seal the outer. By my way of thinking, that is the answer in a nutshell

Logic suggests that makes a lot of sense. Keep the base simple and add the flavour of each dish as you create it. As for whether you can believe the information you were given...... :

Quote from: Razor on November 15, 2010, 07:40 PM
Hi TT,

First piece of advice, which ever measurement you decide to go with, be it Metric or Imperial, stick with it (I know that you know this).  Because most of us on the forum are Brits, metric will be the measurement of choice I'm afraid.

As for choosing a base, I really wouldn't get too hung up about it.  Plenty of onions, minimal spicing, that for me seems the way forward.  Make enough so you can freeze it in individual portions of about 300ml or 0.634 012 925 66 pint US Pints ;D

As for voting for a best base recipe, we have chatted about this in the past and I think that we agreed that it would be quite difficult to attain which would be the best.  The trouble is, In Britain, we have such variation from region to region, a bit like our accents.  It can really change from town to town.  What may be great for Mancunian curry eaters, could be utter rubbish for our Glaswegian cousins, and so, a conclusion is a mere pipedream.

We have however, set up a panel of "recipe testers" whereby we pick something simple every couple of months, such as Onion bhaji for example.  We pick 5 or 6 recipes and 5 or 6 of us road test them, and see what, in our opinion, delivers the best in, taste, ease to make, cost and texture.  You may want to keep an eye out for this but I think we're a very long way off from doing bases and mains.

Ray

P.S, Here's my base https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4596.0  ;D ;D ;D lol

/quote]

I love the conversion to imperial (American) but converted in metric still (decimals, not fractions)

Quote from: Phil (Chaa006) on November 15, 2010, 11:03 AM

Quote from: trucker5774 on November 15, 2010, 10:28 AM
If I have it right, plum tomatoes are a different variety. They also seem a little sweeter to me.

Yes, they are definitely a different variety.  If you compare plum tomatoes and "real" tomatoes when fresh, you will see that the plum variety have a markedly different shape.

** Phil.

That's pretty much what I'm getting at, Phil. In tins we see chopped and plum. The majority seem to be chopped and I would therefore assume they are the more common variety of tomatoes. I suspect the chopped variety may be beef tomatoes? When I have cooked Italian or chilli and have switched between the two, I have noticed a difference. So comparing like for like (all in tins) is there a difference? Or more to the point, will it make a difference?

If I have it right, plum tomatoes are a different variety. They also seem a little sweeter to me.

Sorry.............that's the novice showing through. I was referring to tinned tomatoes, whether they be plum or chopped. I guess from what has been said they are less popular in a main (but maybe have a place) So, which would be the preferred choice, assuming they were used in a base sauce and why?

The chap I met was using them in a "quick method" main without using a base sauce.

Sorry for the ambiguity 

eerrrrrrrrr....not sure about the whip :, but the rest make sense. Thanks guys

Thank you all for the input and the welcome feeling to the site. I will, of course, be back with more questions when the search is just too much conflicting ideas for my limited brain power!